Baseball - Indignity Thy Name is Eric Chavez

"Hey guys, why exactly am I posing like this? ...
Yes, I know I'm a catcher but ... "

Getting old sucks.  It sucks in real life but even more so if you're a professional athlete.  In real life, standing on the doorstep of 40 subjects you to some incredibly original "over the hill" jokes and a cubicle covered with signs like "If age is wisdom, I must be a genius" or "Does Somebody Smell Mothballs?" or a box of depends and a reminder to get your prostate checked.  In the grand scheme of things, it's not all that bad.  You still have decades of work ahead of you.

39 year old athletes on the other hand are fucking done.  The thing they've done better than 99% of the world for their entire life, the thing that defined everything about them as a person, is gone.  And there's not a damn thing they can do about it.  Think about it that way and you understand why some (cough, Favre, couch) find it so difficult to walk away and embrace the next 40 (or if your a football player 15) years of their lives.  It's like getting our of prison, except you're wildly rich ("Brett was here").  Translate that to real life and you'd be incontinent and unable to hold a pen by the time you hit 40.  It's ugly stuff.  

By 39, basketball players and football players have already gotten the old yeller treatment so we don't have to watch them decay, but baseball players can hang around.  Sometimes it works out ok, particularly if you embraced the joys of HGH, but more often it looks a lot like Jorge Posada.

One day he's a 4-time champion and 5-time All-Star, 2 years removed from a 20 home run season and 4 from a .338/.907/20/90, silver slugger and 6th place MVP year, and one of the "Core Four" of baseball's modern dynasty.  And the next day you're benched in favor of Eric Chavez?

Yes, that Eric Chavez.  The last time he was good former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was busy asking Parliament to amend the constitution to provide for multi-candidate presidential elections.  We were in the midst of the Tulip Revolution in Krgystan?  Women weren't allowed to vote in Kuwait?  The pope wasn't a creepy German?  That's 2005 for anyone who don't follow Middle Eastern or papal politics as closely as they should.  Anyway, the point is, it was a long time ago and after 4 lost seasons, Chavez isn't exactly a big-time player.  Before spring training was fully ready to call it quits.  Now, he's making Jorge wish he had.

Jorge, or as he's called Georgie in our constant battle to anglicize everything, is known as a prideful guy.  He's the type with a competitive streak so intense that being hit 9th in the order almost caused him to walk away and be branded a "quitter" by people who can't relate with his mentality.  So, being benched and essentially having his career ended behind a guy who was almost out of baseball has to hurt.

That's not to say the Yankees are wrong.  Chavez had been productive in limited at-bats.  And Posada is done, even if he doesn't know it yet.  But, when decommissioning a legend, the should have at least done it right.  Instead of Chavez, they should have promoted the presumed "next great Yankee hitter" Jesus Montero and seen what he could do.  It's still not easy, but great players want to be replaced by someone who's also, or at least supposed to be, great.  Not just some guy.

In all the excitement of Jeter's 3000th hit, Jorge's struggles have been somewhat overshadowed.  After the season when he (mercifully) retires, it will probably pass through the collective sports consciousness without much fanfare, swallowed up by the NFL deathstar and the NBA lockout.  He likely won't end up in the hall of fame or with his number in monument park.  And he doesn't have a seat at the all-time Yankee table.  But Jorge Posada was a very good player, for a very long time.  And because of that, it's a shame he suffered the indignity of Eric Chavez.